At the end of the Pleistocene, hunters and gatherers in North-West Europe had to adapt themselves and their social systems to abrupt climate and significant environmental changes. This adaptation process is reconstructed in detail in this book, with reference to 25 archaeological sites, and to high-resolution climate and environmental archives.

Based on this rigorous correlation, a chronological relation between climatic, environmental, and cultural change is established, which for the first time allows founded statements about cause and effect. This study reveals that the Pleistocene social systems could cope with the significant climate changes but that they were stretched beyond their limits by quickly changing environmental conditions.